


The Last Idyll

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-22
Updated: 2003-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for lah</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Last Idyll

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lah

 

 

Title: The Last Idyll 

A/N: Thank you to Elizabeth for the beta. The Secret History is a novel written by the fabulous Donna Tartt. 

* 

After Richard and Camilla leave, Francis is left alone with some new scars and too memories to be entirely comfortable. He's not entirely regretful that he survived, but he is sure that marriage will prove a bracing affair. He pours himself a cup of tea, with a generous shot of whiskey added for good measure. He stubs the cigarette he's holding out in the ashtray, and lights another. 

Sometimes Francis thinks that if he can pinpoint the exact moment that it occurred, he can find a solution for the way his life is now. Other times he thinks that maybe Henry had the right idea that day in the Albemarle. Perhaps Henry had been able to see into the future, been able to see that they could never return to the real world after those three years at Hampden. 

But then who knows? Perhaps Henry is only marginally better off, stuck in paralyzing Limbo, while the rest of them suffer through Purgatory. 

* 

He is to be married in the next month or so. Sooner if his grandfather has anything to say on the subject. Francis smokes steadily looking out the window of his apartment, and down at the street below. If he closes his eyes, the streets vanish and are replaced by narrow roads with old brick buildings, the odd student milling about. He can smell the scent of old whiskey clinging to his clothes, the taste of tea and see the dull lamplight illuminating his old apartment. 

Julian, Henry, Bunny. Now when he thinks of them he sees them as bright and as alluring as the stars, and just as distant, their faults smoothed over and only their eyes shining reproachfully at him. Years and the passage of time has dulled his the pain of losing them, but the memories are still razor sharp and his breath catches in his throat as he breathes in deeply, choking a little on the smoke. 

Francis knew from the moment that the manager burst through the door, and Henry fell to the ground that everything was over. He could never have imagined another year without Julian, the twins, and Henry. He had loved the twins dearly, but it was Henry he had known the longest and Henry he had trusted to see them through whatever life had thrown their way. 

He had liked both the twins from the first, caught up in the allure of their twinship, the unified front that they always seemed so ready to present. He had liked Charles more so than Camilla, for obvious reasons. The first time he'd been a sophomore, and Charles had been drunk. Very drunk with hair falling over his eyes, and careless laughter, and Francis had found him charming. He'd leaned over and kissed him, and Charles had been startled at first, then very agreeable. 

Camilla, Francis is sure, knew from the moment that it happened. Her manner had never changed, but something in her cool blue eyes, so similar to Charles, told him that she knew. * 

He hasn't seen Charles in a while, since that last time that he arrived on his doorstep, familiar tilt of his head and half hidden smile. When he does think of him, he likes to remember him in the stretch of slow endless time before their last fall at Hampden. 

It had been sunny day, uncommonly bright for September in Vermont. He looks out over the grounds from the windowseat and watches the light filter through the reddening leaves of the oak trees. It's a day for Greek and he scratches away at the first composition due for Julian on Monday morning. 

The twins and Henry comes over around two when Francis is still lazing about in his slacks and an old faded oxford. Camilla gives him a kiss on the cheek and hands him a bottle of white wine. They laze about drinking, until they're all drowsy with autumn and bourbon and Greek. 

Later Henry has taken Camilla home, and Francis lies on the couch, his skin buzzing with drunkenness, and fading light coming through the windows, reading out loud from the Aeneid. "Doesn't this sound like us Charles? `A race of Saturn, needing no laws and no restraint for own will." 

Charles moves slowly, languid strokes of his hand that seem so easy and casual; drunk and half asleep he leans against Francis on the couch pushing him over until they are almost lying next to each other. 

Francis pulls his arm free, and turns the page. "" 

Charles rustles irritably and shakes himself awake. "Didn't you listen to Julian in lecture?" a smile drifting on his lips. "Homer is a world; Virgil a style." 

"That was Van Doren, Charles" 

Charles chuckles. "Same thing Francois." 

_I never learn_ thinks Francis. But he keeps his voice admirably even, reading. Henry would be appalled that it wasn't the original, but it's a Saturday afternoon, and Francis feels enjoys the little guilty pleasures of reading a translation. 

There are other guilty pleasure to indulge in the fall, and Charles's fingers are warm as they slip under the waist of his trousers, and slide over the bones of his hips He smells sweet, like wine and rain, and his breath is hot against Francis's throat and Francis swallows slowly. 

"And your name will reach to the stars, from birth to death." 

Charles chuckles a little, and it's a rough intoxicating sound, and his fingers rub more insistently, unbuttoning the waist of his trousers. "The stars, Francis." 

Vega. Polaris. Arcturus. And he names them out loud as they slowly get undressed. 

The book falls from his fingers, and he pushes Charles down, unbuttoning his shirt, looking carefully at his face. Brilliant flushed cheeks, and eyes that are cloudy with desire, he looks like some charming creature out of Greek myth. 

He kisses him slowly, cautiously, before falling victim to his beauty. _I'll never learn_

* 

The Bacchanal changed everything, and Francis can still remember coming back to his body, covered in blood, bites, and dread. _No no no, this is just a dream_ They had all been so wild, filled with the reckless heady delight that came of thinking of themselves as immortal. 

Francis had never been close to Bunny in particular, with his affectations and slightly overbearing manner, but Bunny was always likable in theory, and they never spent too much time together. And before everything came to a head with the nasty jokes, the insults and the murder Bunny had been a good sport, with funny awkward jokes in Greek, and a breezy oblivious manner that Francis found amusing. 

He can still remember with horrible vivid clarity, that night in Boston, their original plan destroyed, trying to figure out what they could do next. 

The hotel room had been non smoking, but that hadn't given any one of them pause, and sitting in a quiet circle, full ashtray on the table between the four of them. The air is thick with smoke and unspoken thoughts and nervous energy. His pack of cigarettes gone, he had reached over to grab one of Henry's Lucky Strikes, even though he despised how Henry smoked unfiltered. 

"I don't like it." He had said his voice rough with worry. 

"I don't like it either Francis, but after today I don't see that we have any choice." Henry voice was so cold and methodical. 

"Jesus Henry, what about Richard?" he asked. Francis likes Richard, with his dreamy expressions and slow way of talking. 

"Henry can take care of him right?" says Camilla looking up from the chair she is sharing with Charles. 

They sit up for the rest of the night, smoking and drinking, alternating between cries of "What else can we do?" and "There has to be another way." The twins were optimistic about their chances of making it South America without the money, but Henry had been against going forward. Francis remembers his eyes catching Henry's and turning away. His heart beating rapidly, excess of liquor flowing through his veins, clouding his judgment. Could this possibly right? He should leave; get some fresh air, away from this room with intense silences and stale smoke. But he stays, riveted to the spot, watching in silence as Henry outlined what they would need to do. 

Looking back, Francis marvels at the supreme arrogance that imbued every cadence of their words that night. Each sentence uttered had held the weight of life or death, and drunk with liquor and power, traces of that night still in their blood, they had made the decision to take Bunny's life. They never thought about the consequences then, and while Francis thinks a lot about fate, and how things could have been different, and he doesn't ever really believe that it could have ended any other way. 

*  
The sound of the door opening in the background brings him crashing back to reality as his fingers. The cigarette is burning low and is fingers are almost burnt. He starts and drops it carelessly onto the plate, and watches as ashes float gently down to land in his teacup. His thoughts are like honey flowing slowly from one to another, collecting to form a blurry recollection. 

He can see himself now, dashing through the halls of the Lyceum filled with a sense of purpose as he made his way towards Greek Composition. He'd loved everything then, weekends in the country, euchre with Camilla, and being blissfully drunk listening as Henry would recite poetry. And the wave of purpose that had carried them to such heights had broken, ebbing away, and leaving only a shadow of itself behind. 

"Zeus in Olympus guides our fate, and sends us many things undreamed of. What is expected does not happen, the unexpected comes to pass. So has it happened here." 

His fingers slip over the scars on his wrist, and rub together with a nervous tremor he's never shaken. The sunset illuminates the room with the last rays of lights, and as it fades away mellow gold, Francis thinks that maybe this is the dream. If he lifts the sash of the window, he'll be able to hear the sound of Charles shouting his name. "Francis! We're going to be late." 

He luxuriates in the memory, as the light fades away, and his dream self picks himself up, dusts off his sleeves, and makes his way out the door to meet an old friend. 

 


End file.
